Wednesday, September 19, 2012

"Television. The drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation." - Disposable Hereos of the Hiphoprisy.

Television. Vilified. Derided. Decried. Abhorred. Often, television's detractors are quite hypocritical, or at least sickeningly self-righteous. But there is no doubt that television has earned its vilification. However, the evils of TV are not what I am going to write about. I was looking over the song in my iTunes library today and I realised that there many songs on there that I have because I heard them on television. I have heard good music via television programming - including commercials. Below are two different examples I have heard via an Addidas ad and Lost.

This is the original version of Dee Edwards' "Why Can't There Be Love". Addidas came out with a pretty slick campaign and used a remix of the song in a series of ads. It was catchy. I didn't by any shoes because of it, but I did hunt the song down on iTunes and bought it.

Admittedly, I didn't watch lost while it was running on television. I have been watching it on Netflix. Unlike Soul music, I am not a huge fan of country. I have artists I like, songs I like, but I don't go out of my way to listen to it or explore it. And then this one episode of Lost grabbed me. Guy drops the needle on his turntable soon after waking up. The song plays, the songs skips repeatedly and is stopped. It was catchy. It was infectious. It was Willie Nelson's "Shotgun Willie".